I’m saying that the Russian empire was different, and even the USSR was different.

Different, yes of course, what I’m trying to get at here is that there’s still consistencies. The three systems are different coats of paint on the same dysfunction. There’s also been some progress, I already mentioned the nuclear family, but the overall problem won’t be fixed until the dysfunction is understood, organically, by society.

That’s where you are wrong.

As you might have guessed, one can’t punish FSB for entrapment, they are the ones doing the punishing.

I don’t think we actually disagree: The forces that I described breed the type of people the FSB needs to do its enforcement. Cynical, ruthless, eager to suppress their trauma by inflicting it on others. In Tsarist times there was more, religion and all that, a very old notion of what God’s plan for society is, roles for everyone, in the USSR at least a number of them were actually ideologically convinced, by now, power is the only ideology. They’re mighty so they must be right, don’t they?

Except see my previous part about special services’ work. The real problem is not in nobody willing to organize.

Russia had a revolution before, it can have one again. Bluntly put: The Kremlin guards are less well armed than Ukraine. Revolutions aren’t organised, they happen once the collective psyche reaches a breaking point. No words, just people’s subconsciousness noticing the mood of the people around them, assessing the chances: “Am I going to be alone, or are we going to march together?” and suddenly decades happen in weeks.

What would be important is having a couple of ideas on what will come after that. How to not lose the moment, again. Who would be the current-day Bolsheviks, opposed to the deposed-of system but also to the freedom of the people? How to convince Yuri Shevchuk to accept being crowned Tsar. I’m only half joking.

And that stuff about Europe and homosexuality seems for me a kind of “the hungry doesn’t understand the full”, more of jokes and separation than of really thinking that’s true.

I’m talking about an underlying psychosexual current. Of course people don’t believe in the literal truth of these kinds of things, it’d be like believing that dreams are literally true. But there’s still a reason why you’re having these particular kinds of dreams, and not different ones.

They followed their own laws. If a law was too cumbersome to make, they didn’t. It was an absolute monarchy, but if you compare today’s Russia’s judicial system to the imperial one - the latter seems very humane.

Do you think it’s even constitutional for Putin to deputise people with presidential powers? That any court would challenge him? Law in Russia was, and is, subordinate to the powers that be.

Nah, not that. If we make this comparison, for them it’s the father’s right, and you are subordinate. It’s not about fear of punishment, it’s about enduring for endurance’s sake. Almost morality.

That’s the attitude of those considered strong, yes. You either become them or you break and end up with a tattoo saying “slave” on your forehead or something.

People who you are maybe looking for here are not those who try to somehow explain the state’s justifications for this war.

I’m not talking about the state’s justification, but about the justification of the cultural psyche. Russia, as a psyche, doesn’t want to see Ukrainians with forehead tattoos, it wants Ukraine to be part of it. Part of the same ethos, with maybe slightly different dances, clothing, and they can continue pronouncing things with h instead of g as long as they admit they’re Russians, that they accept, as you put it above, the father’s authority. And the only way that psyche knows how to convince the son of the father’s authority is by cruelty.

The virtuous suffering thing is often stupid, but sometimes a strength.

It’s not. It destroys social cohesion, it breeds neurosis. With true courage, it doesn’t matter whether you live or die for the cause, as long as the cause is virtuous. This Russian strength, though, it only can ever make sense if you’re dying for it, living for it indeed is stupid, at the same time its strength in dying for it is not stronger than that of true courage. It’s precisely why Russians don’t know where the fuck that cart is racing. But go, it must. Why. Why not make camp and have a party.

The reason is simple: Without the people neurotic, distrustful, and accustomed to bowing to authority, the central authority would fall, because people would actually be able to organise bottom-up. The central authority knows that, and thus does nothing to combat it, the people, well, it’s Russia’s only way to greatness, isn’t it? Any alternatives?

Which brings me to Navalny’s balls of steel, returning to Russia: Yes, that’s impressive. That’s strong, “virtuous suffering”. But it’s also accepting the status quo. You can’t be a revolutionary against a system by holding onto the ethos that fuels it.

There’s just one thing that Russians really lack - understanding of the importance of truth.

Now that is a universal human trait.

For an American or a German it takes belief in a propaganda device to follow it. For a Russian - just acceptance that it’s likelier to be better in some way.

Americans don’t believe in, whatnot, manifest destiny, their exceptionalism, they live it. Germans certainly don’t believe in classism, yet we’re living it. Generally speaking: The stuff that people are actually following is not found on the propaganda level, but on a level below that, on a cultural carrier wave so to speak. Why propagandise something that people are doing, anyway? Doesn’t make sense.

No. Just the belief that there’s some deeper grey wisdom, a secret, and you’d be an idiot to just give yourself to some specific idea.

That’s just bug-standard metamodernism collapsed into fascism, that is, regressed into modernism. Just to explains terms: Modernism is the age of grand ideas, “one true path to absolve humankind”, while postmodernism is the “yo all that stuff is BS anyway we don’t know shit”. You see those forces oscillating throughout history, metamodernism means their co-existence.

That belief might very well what people are telling themselves, but it’s a shallow analysis. The “deeper grey wisdom” (interesting that you used “grey” btw, “it must be ancient” – why?) is Snokhachestvo, and not the practice itself but the cultural attitudes that enable(d) it. Russia made some progress overcoming that shit, e.g. normalising nuclear families instead of communal ones (the one crucial achievement of the USSR), but the underlying cultural beliefs stay uninterrogated, able to perpetuate themselves. Thus men do to their sons what their fathers did to them, think that’s what being a man is all about, and if you don’t use whatever power and might you have to be cruel, you’re obviously gay. Like Europe.

That is what I meant with “a belief in might makes right”.

A whole country of cynics thinking they know better.

Germany has 80 million national football team trainers. There seems to be a pattern here: Declaring universal human traits as specifically Russian. Those traits are true, no doubt, but they’re not unique.

That’s not how central power functioned back then, and what happens now is a mafia group gratuitously using its vast human resources to just have fun.

It didn’t? The Tsar and the viceroys, plundering the country and living the good life. The General Secretariat or even Secretary and the Nomenklatura, plundering the country and living the good life. “Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others”. In either case, highly authoritarian societies, with varying levels of totalitarianism. Such a setup requires cruelty and ruthlessness, and there’s no shortage of either because, according to Russian culture throughout the ages, good fathers make sure that their sons are strong men by raping the son’s wife. Metaphorically speaking, at least: The “sons” might be subordinate soldiers, and the “wife” their pay checks and materiel. In the position of son, you’re just expected to take it, otherwise you’re weak, and the “father” will make sure that’s an even worse fate. The Siloviki do indeed want to free Ukrainians – so they bomb cities. Free them from their “European gayness”, that is. Such is the perversity of the Russian psyche.

Or, differently put: You sure you’re looking at the water you’re swimming in? I’m not Russian, I only lived there, and I was able to see the water. Swimming feels quite a bit different in Russia than it does virtually everywhere else.

No, it’s not any more a Russian weakness than an American one, even less than a Japanese or a Chinese one.

Russians don’t have the “fuck the feds” grassroots rebelliousness of Americans, they don’t have a honour/respectability culture like the Japanese not to mention that Russians have basically no civil society while Japan (as a stem family culture) has a very strong one, and unlike the Chinese Russians are fatalist AF, don’t really have expectations about things becoming better for them. If the CCP had started this shit they would’ve lost the mandate of heaven quite a while ago.

But I agree, it’s not so much a strong man fetish. It’s an acceptance of might makes right combined with social acceptance of tyrannical behaviour on the individual level and, consequently, high distrust among individuals stopping the formation of a civil society.

Russian society hasn’t fundamentally changed since the days of the Tsars, they’ve gone through various paint-coats while sticking to the same overarching organisational structure: Central power delegates exploitation of people, the environment etc to viceroys in exchange for loyalty, meanwhile acquisition of new colonial subjects is ongoing as, being built on terror, the imperial core can never feel safe and needs to bash something to distract itself from its vulnerability.

…that’s exactly what I mean. All the broken bits and pieces get shipped to Germany to make Milchreis because it really doesn’t matter what the grains look like if you’re soaking them to smithereens anyway. Into pudding, that is. Which you should totally try on a cold day: Dump into sweetened milk (vanilla if you want), quick boil, 30-40 minutes of soaking at falling/low heat, add cinnamon, maybe some coarse raw sugar for texture variation, eat as-is or with apple sauce.

Only got Jasmin or such at home and still crave the stuff? Well, prepare it. Nothing’s stopping you.

Not just Asia, Italians and Spaniards are also quite particular about rice.

1kg bags in Germany cost 2.50 Euro for Jasmin, 3 for Basmati. One Euro for cheap parboiled. All discounter store brand. Risotto 2 Euro, that stuff is grown in Italy.

…10kg prices are practically identical, or better put if you shop at a place than sells 10kg bags suddenly the 1kg bags are expensive.

Do you believe that every party in every parliament in the world should be able to just stop parliament from working instead of trying to actually vote for laws/bills

Plenty of parliamentarians getting kicked out of western parliaments for wearing t-shirts with slogans, holding up signs, suchlike. Suspensions generally are extraordinarily short and little more than “ok we’ll give you some time to change into respectable attire”. Also make a scene? Add a day. Make them watch from the visitor’s benches. Pay attention they don’t miss (relevant) votes.

That would have been the proper reaction: The proper way to handle ritual stunts (and they’re a ritual, also the t-shirt thing) is with ritual slaps on the wrist.

The NZ reaction? They’re suspending parliamentarians for unprecedented amounts of time, and on top of that while the budget is being passed. That is, they’re fucking with the distribution of votes, which is fucking with the foundations of democracy. That is, for a parliament, nothing less than a declaration of bankruptcy.

If the genocide get completed no amount of oh it was complicated would change anything.

Agreed. But the failure is with the political reaction, not the courts. Courts aren’t the police, the police is the police, and the police is asleep.

The ICJ is very well aware of all of that IIRC, most of it was even in the opening statements.

And, as said: Politically, that kind of stuff is damning, it’s proof. For the judiciary, though, things are more complicated. They have to do more legwork to do until, at some point, they also come to the same conclusion, as the genocide scholars have done, and the scholar’s judgement is way more bullet-proof than the political judgement I gave a month or two in that yes, Israel is falling to fascism, yes, they’re committing genocide. And the judge’s judgement will be even more bullet-proof. But it’s going to take time to actually prove things to that kind of high standard.

the hell are you talking about are you a zionist under cover or just stupid?

How often do I have to say that Israel is committing genocide for people to stop calling me a zionist? It’s getting tiring.

What for you would be a bulltet proof evidence?

It’s abundantly clear that parts of the Israeli administration, the IDF, are guilty of genocide. Expanding that to the whole state of Israel, proving intent and not just mere incompetence at stopping rogue IDF elements, will probably require access to files and protocols Israel is withholding…

The icj is simply politically influenced

… and from the activists’ perspective, a political perspective, that withholding is proof of guilt, for a court, it’s more complicated. Before court, there’s stricter requirements: The ICJ cannot follow the the political assessment not because it’s politically influenced, but because it’s not political. Because it can’t make that kind of snap judgement.

The icj despite all the evidences proving it still decided to not say definitely that there is a genocide.

Because they do not have the evidence necessary to rule that way. Mostly, yes, because Israel is rather uncooperative, and the ICJ can’t just raid Netanyahu’s office.

With their ruling no country has obligation to do their best to stop israel occupation and agression.

All countries have that obligation no matter what the ICJ rules.

Do you want the genocide to be admited a decade after it happened just like with the bostnian genocide declared as such after 12 years?

This is not about “admitting”, or “strongly suspecting”, or “preponderance of evidence”, but “beyond reasonable doubt”. Proof should only be declared when it’s actually bullet-proof.

As said: Otherwise, you leave an attack surface for genocide deniers, they’ll spend the next 1000 years talking about “The antisemitic conspiracy that managed to frame Israel for genocide, here, have a look, they suspended due process to come to that conclusion”. Don’t play into the hands of those assclowns.

And the judge, before all evidence, all arguments are in, the prosecutor has been heard, the defence has been heard, the defender has been heard, and everything has been deliberated with other judges? Would you also require of them to call it a genocide the day the prosecutor brings the case to court?

You are simply doing genocide apologia here

I have been calling what Israel is doing a genocide like four or five times now. In this very thread. Watch where you’re aiming.

There is a difference between a prosecutor calling the accused a murderer, and a judge calling the accused a murderer. Can you follow me this far.

Judges. Scholars. Neither operate on the assumption of guilt, but assumption of innocence. And there’s a very fucking good reason to do that, to see what assumption of guilt does to a people simply observe how the Israeli right considers Palestinians: Guilty unless proven otherwise. You can’t fight barbarism by succumbing to it.

And that has to be established, instead of just assumed… If you’re a scholar or judge. Activists can and should just assume it given that there’s plenty of circumstantial evidence.

You don’t want activist scholars or judges because then you don’t have scholars or judges any more, is all I’m saying. Leave the activism to the activists.

No such a thing as genocide proper and genocide not proper.

That’s not what I said. There’s a difference between genocidal acts and genocide, same as there’s a difference between breaking a promise and fraud.

You don’t want a genocide to be declared a decade after just like it happened in Bosnia

Yes we want exactly that, because genocide needs to be proven thoroughly because otherwise deniers have an attack surface. But we also want to intervene much earlier. Those two things are not at odds.

A livestreamed genocide where the perpetrators were unapologetically genocidal since day 0

That’s evidence of a genocidal act, and of intent of the precise perpetrators. It does not, on its own, prove that Israel, as opposed to merely those people, are guilty of genocide. Israel could, for example, have brought them to justice themselves.

And you’re white-washing their cowardice as scholarly integrity and standards. Bullshit.

Upholding things like the presumption of innocence and due process does not preclude me from shouting “stop the thief”. As said: I’ve been doing that since day one. Yet, when dragging that thief before court, I’d still expect the court to actually look at the matter in detail. Those procedural hoops exist for good reason: Justice cannot be served by mob rule.

And many of them did. But if you’re a “genocide scholar” and you’re only now coming to the conclusion that this is genocide. 19 months after real scholars correctly pointed to it. You are not a scholar. You are a glorified record keeper.

All of them have been agreeing that Israel is committing genocidal acts pretty much since month, if not week, one. Then the scholarly debate started on whether the sum of genocidal acts already constitutes genocide proper. It’s one of those cases where scholars make distinctions that activists don’t like because activists like simple narratives, punchy slogans, clear-cut lines, as opposed to getting bogged down in nuance.

I’m not saying that activists are wrong calling it a genocide, I’ve been predicting that the Kahanites are going to use the opportunity on day fucking one, but it’s also not right to expect scholars to lower their standards, simplify their analytic framework. There’s a good reason why they apply metric tons of nuance to everything.

Hate crime against gay people isn’t recognised by law

…it’s not recognised in e.g. Germany either? Crime is recognised by law which plenty of states consider plenty. Punching people outside of self-defence is wrong doesn’t really matter to many jurisdictions why you’re doing it.

Protections against workplace etc. discrimination were introduced in 2014, gay marriage is on society’s agenda but as so often the first reading was controversial and now there’s a war and the constitution can’t be changed, anyway.

You could say the same thing about people getting hospitalised at prides about Poland. Ukraine is a post-soviet state so the starting point was “not great, not terrible” (that is, it wasn’t literally illegal to be gay but no social acceptance whatsoever), and is moving in the right direction. Don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good.

Do note that the likes of right sector don’t have wider societal backing. Politically, they’re very much fringe.